Sun sparkled from the crested tops of restless waves as Perry Mason paced the deck, enjoying the fresh air and the morning sun. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of a double-breasted coat, his rubber-soled shoes trod lightly along the teakwood deck. The warm breeze ruffled his wavy hair. He had circled the deck for the third time when the heavy door from the forward social hall was pushed open an inch or two. Della Street shouldered it open, to stand with wind-whipped skirts while Belle Newberry stepped across the high threshold.
As they released the door and the wind pushed it against the automatic door check, Mason, walking up behind them, called “Ship Ahoy!” and, as they turned, said to Della Street, “The other side is less windy.”
Della nodded, the warm wind blowing tendrils of hair across her face. “Belle,” she said, “this is the boss. Chief, I’d like to have you meet Belle Newberry, my roommate. We’re working up an appetite for breakfast.”
“Let’s go,” Mason suggested.
With a girl on each arm, he started forward along the deck. Rounding the bow, the wind pushed them on down the sloping incline, into the lee of the deck. Belle Newberry put her hair back into place, laughed, and said, “That’s what’s known as a wind-blown bob. I’ve been hearing a lot about you, Mr. Mason.”
“If it’s bad,” Mason told her, “you can believe it, if it’s good, it’s slander.”
She faced him with laughing, dark eyes, full red lips, parted to reveal teeth which glinted like whitecaps in the sun. The silk blouse, open at the neck, disclosed the sweep of her throat, the rounded curve of her firm breasts. “I saw you and Moms talking last night,” she said. “I’ll bet Moms told you all about the family mystery.”
“Mystery?” Mason asked.
“Uh huh,” she said. “Don’t stand there and act innocent.”
Della Street flashed Mason a quick glance. “What’s the family mystery, Belle?” she asked.
“The disappearing portrait,” she said. “Mother packed my autographed picture in Dad’s bag and locked the bag. When they unpacked, my picture was gone from the frame, and someone had inserted one of Winnie Joyce, my double. Now, what do you know about that?”
“I,” Della Street said, glancing reproachfully at Perry Mason, “know nothing about it. What does your mother think about it?”
“She’s making it darkly mysterious,” Belle said. “Don’t deprive her of her thrill. If she tells you about it, look frightened.”
“You don’t take it seriously, then?” Mason inquired.
“Me?” she told him, raising her chin and laughing up into his face. “I don’t take anything seriously — life, liberty, or the pursuit of love. I’m the flippant younger generation, Mr. Mason — born without reverence — yet reared without guile, thank Heaven.”
“And how about your father?” Mason inquired. “How does he take it?”
“Oh, Dad takes it right in his stride,” she said. “Pops is a Thinker, carries the world on his shoulders. Only occasionally can I get him to set it down long enough to play with me.”
“That,” Mason said, “doesn’t answer my question.”
“Ooh, the Big Bad Lawyer!” she laughed. “I forgot I was being cross-examined. What shall we call this, Mr. Mason — ‘The Case of the Purloined Picture’?”
“It wasn’t purloined,” he said, “so much as substituted.”
“All right, then. ‘The Case of the Substitute Face.’ How will that do?”
“All right,” he said, “at least temporarily. What does your father say about it — and, incidentally, what are your theories?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have theories. I’m too young... You don’t mind being kidded a bit, do you, Mr. Mason? Because if you do, you only have to say so and I get worse... No, seriously speaking, Dad and I both think it’s just a joke someone in the hotel played. You know Moms. She swears that it was my picture in the frame when she was doing the packing, but Moms gets excited when we travel. You see. Miss Joyce and I look alike, even if Miss Joyce wouldn’t admit it. Ever since I started traveling, people in restaurants and night clubs have been staring at me, nudging each other and whispering.”
“You might capitalize on it,” Mason said. “A stand-in or something.”
“That’s what I claim,” Belle Newberry said, the banter instantly leaving her eyes, and her voice slightly wistful. “I think it would be a swell chance for me to go to Hollywood and look around, but Dad says nothing doing, that I stay with him until after I’m twenty-three, and that’ll be six months. My Lord! It seems as though I’ve been twenty-two forever... there I go, telling my age!”
Mason laughed. “You liked Honolulu?”
“Crazy about it,” she said. “Lord, how I hated to leave! I’d never even dreamt of such a glamorous, thrilling experience. I suppose I shouldn’t indulge in all those enthusiasms, but should be more like the society bud at the hotel who raised her eyebrows and made her face look like a stifled yawn whenever anyone asked her how she enjoyed the Islands. Then, after just the right interval, she’d say, ‘Oh, they’re quite nice, thank you.’ You know, that world-weary sophistication which comes to us blase twenty-year-olds.”
“Yes,” Mason laughed, “I’ve encountered it.”
“I’ve wallowed in it,” she said. “It surrounded me all through college.”
“Your first ocean voyage?” Mason inquired.
“Going to the Islands was not only my first ocean voyage,” she told him, “but positively and absolutely the first time I’ve ever been... well now, wait a minute, I hadn’t better make any confessions. After all, there’s nothing so disillusioning as a woman with a drab past, and you know, I...”
She broke off as the door on the lee side opened, and Roy Hungerford, attired in white flannels, stepped out to the deck and looked eagerly to the right and left. He caught sight of them, smiled, and came swiftly toward them. Belle Newberry hooked her arm through his and performed introductions.
Della Street said, “You two go walk up that appetite. I see that I have to go into a huddle with the boss. He has a businesslike look on his face. You shouldn’t have mentioned mysteries, Belle. Now you’ve reminded him that he’s returning to the office.”
Belle Newberry flashed her a grateful glance, and nodded to Roy Hungerford. They pushed forward into the wind, and Della Street looked up at the tall lawyer and said, “Okay, Chief, spill it.”
“Spill what?” Mason asked.
She laughed and said, “Go on, don’t pull that stuff on me. Tell me all about the family mystery — The Case of the Substitute Face.”
“You know about all there is to know about it,” Mason told her. “The photographs were switched.”
“Who did the switching, and why?” Della asked.
“I don’t know,” Mason admitted. “There are complicating factors. Come on up on the boat deck and I’ll tell you about them.”
They climbed the stairway, walked past the gymnasium, across the deck tennis court, and found a sheltered spot in the lee of the rooms used as ship’s hospital. Mason told Della Street of his conversation with Mrs. Newberry. “So,” she said when he had finished, “you sent a radiogram to Paul Drake.”
He nodded.
She laughed. “Well, that’ll be a good preliminary training for Paul. He’s had a rest while you were batting around the Orient. I’ll bet he missed the wild scramble of your work. How about breakfast?”
He nodded. “In a minute. What do you think of her?”
“Of whom?”
“Of your cabin-mate.”
“Oh, she’s a kick. She’s an observing kid, and chuck full of life. She’s modern, impatient of all sham and pretense, and isn’t too affected to show enthusiasm. She’s as full of bounce as a rubber ball.”
“Did she say anything about young Hungerford?”
“No. It’s really deep and serious with her. She treats the world in that light, flippant manner, but this is something she won’t treat that way. Come on. Chief, let’s eat. I’m starved.”
They were half through breakfast when Drake’s first radiogram was received. It read simply:
PRODUCTS REFINING COMPANY ASSETS SHORT TWENTY-FIVE GRAND. PRIVATE DETECTIVES MAKING QUIET SEARCH FOR MOAR — VANISHED EMPLOYEE. NO COMPLAINT FILED AS YET. APPARENTLY NIGGER SOMEWHERE IN WOODPILE AND AUDITORS LACK SUFFICIENT PROOF TO MAKE DEFINITE ACCUSATIONS.
Della, taking the cablegram from Mason, said, “That’s fast work, Chief.”
“Uh huh. But remember, it’s later there than it is here. He’s been on the job for two or three hours.”
They were strolling the promenade deck, snapping colored photographs with Mason’s miniature camera, when Drake’s second message came. It read:
NO SWEEPSTAKE OR LOTTERY WINNERS NAMED MOAR. WINNERS LAST FOUR MONTHS ALL ACCOUNTED FOR.
And his third radiogram was received about noon:
WINNIE JOYCE HAS NO SISTERS. BETTER FORGET ROMANCE PERRY AND STICK TO BUSINESS. COME HOME. ALL IS FORGIVEN.
Mason, folding the message, said, “Damn him, I’ll get even with him for that.”
“Here comes Mrs. Newberry,” Della Street Said.
Mason returned Mrs. Newberry’s good-morning, and said, “I have some information for you.”
“Can you tell me now?” she asked, glancing dubiously at Della Street.
Mason said, “I have no secrets from Della. Do you want me to beat around the bush, or do you want it straight from the shoulder?”
“Straight from the shoulder.”
“All right. The Products Refining Company is about twenty-five thousand dollars short. Private detectives are looking for your husband. He didn’t win any sweepstakes.”
She kept her profile turned toward them, her eyes staring far out over the ocean. Weariness was stamped on her features. “It’s what I expected,” she said.
Mason said, “I think you’d better have a talk with your husband, Mrs. Newberry.”
“It won’t do any good,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “if I sat in on the conference it would help.”
“Help what?” she asked.
“Help to make him tell the truth.”
“Well,” she said dejectedly, “suppose he tells the truth. What then?”
Mason was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “Look here, Mrs. Newberry, I won’t represent your husband in this business.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” Mason went on, “we may be able to reach an understanding. I would try to protect Belle if it were definitely understood I wasn’t representing your husband.”
She faced him then, her eyes showing a glint of hope.
“Your husband,” Mason pointed out, “has sailed under the name of Newberry. No one on board this ship knows him except as Newberry. On the other hand, he embezzled money from the Products Refining Company under the name of Moar. No one in the Products Refining Company knows him except as Moar. I might be able to capitalize on that. Now then, if I were representing your husband, and tried to patch matters up with the Products Refining Company, someone might claim I was trying to compound a felony. But if I had nothing to do with your husband and was representing you on behalf of Belle, I might be able to work out a deal by which he could make restitution of whatever money he has left and receive in return some concessions. In other words, the company might be willing to cooperate with us, perhaps to the extent of joining in an application for probation, and they would probably agree to keep you and your daughter free from any publicity. If we could do that, do you think your husband would be willing to surrender, confess and make what restitution he could?”
“He’d do anything to help Belle,” she said. “That’s the only reason he took the money in the first place.”
Mason said, “If I’m going to handle it that way, I want it distinctly understood I’m not representing your husband. I’m representing you, and you alone. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“And until I’ve brought matters to a head, I don’t want your husband to even know that I’m working on the case. I don’t want to talk with him. I don’t want him to try to talk with me.”
“That would be all right,” she said.
“Have you any idea how much money he has left?”
“No. He carries it all in a money belt.”
“Assuming that the original embezzlement was twenty-five thousand dollars, how much do you suppose you’ve spent?”
“In the last two months we’ve spent more than five thousand dollars,” she said. “I know that for a fact.”
“We could do a lot of trading with twenty thousand dollars,” Mason observed, staring out at the blue horizon.
Mrs. Newberry said, “There’s one other element of danger, Mr. Mason, something you’ve got to guard against.”
“What’s that?” Mason asked.
“Have you noticed the man with the broken neck?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “What about him?”
“It isn’t him,” she said. “It’s his nurse. Carl knows her.”
“Well?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you see what that means? He knew her before he married me. She knows him as Carl Moar. If she should see him and recognize him, she’d be sure to call him by the name of Moar.”
“Just what do you know about her?” Mason asked.
“Her name’s Evelyn Whiting. She’s... here she comes now.”
A young, attractive nurse, in a stiffly starched uniform, pushed a wheel chair along the promenade deck. A man lay in the wheel chair, his head cradled in a padded steel harness which was strapped to his shoulders. His eyes were protected from the sun by a huge pair of dark goggles.
Mrs. Newberry’s lowered voice was sympathetic. “Poor chap, he was in an automobile wreck. His neck’s broken. He may have to wear that harness for two or three years. He can’t turn his head, isn’t even supposed to talk. She asks him a question and then puts her hand in his. He squeezes once for yes and twice for no. He can’t use his legs. Think of not being able to even turn your head to avoid the glare of the sun.”
Mason studied the nurse. She was in the early thirties, attractive, well-figured, auburn-haired. She felt his gaze and turned eyes to his which showed a frank interest before they shifted solicitously back to her patient. She stopped the chair and said, “Is it a little too sunny for you here, Mr. Cartman? Would you like to go around on the other side of the deck?”
She pushed her hand under the light blanket which covered the thin figure, and Mason saw the blanket move as the man squeezed her hand once. She turned the wheel chair and sought the shady side of the deck.
“How does your husband expect to avoid her?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Newberry confessed. “He’ll only come on deck when she’s in the cabin. The fact that she’s nursing that man makes it easier for Carl.”
“Couldn’t he go to her and explain that he was using another name and—”
“I’m afraid not,” Mrs. Newberry said. “He tells me that he handled some money for her once on an investment. The investment didn’t turn out well and he thinks she might feel a little bitter about it-particularly if she saw that he seemed to have plenty of money now.”
Mason turned to Della Street. “Encode a wireless to my office, Della. Tell Jackson to find out what concessions the Products Refining Company would be willing to make if Moar should surrender and return intact approximately twenty thousand dollars of the embezzled money. Tell Jackson to have it definitely understood that he’s merely asking questions on behalf of an interested party, is not representing Moar, does not know where Moar is, and is at present only asking for information. Tell him to handle it diplomatically and report progress.”
Mrs. Newberry gripped his hand in thanks. After a moment she said, “I’ll go now. It’ll be better if I’m not seen with you too frequently. If you’re not going to have any contact with Carl... Well, I wouldn’t want Belle to suspect that I was consulting you professionally.”
Mason said, “It’ll probably take my office two or three days to get anything definite. In the meantime, you sit tight and don’t worry.”
He left her, to circle the deck. Celinda Dail, clad in a sun suit which showed her long, sun-browned limbs to advantage, was playing ping-pong with Roy Hungerford.